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Research
Current Projects by Principal Investigator
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Research
W. Allan Walker, MD
 Professor of Pediatrics, Chief
Phone: 617-726-4166
Fax: 617-726-4172
Email: wwalker@partners.org
Curriculum Vita
Fellows: Lei Lu, Meiqian Weng, Ilse Broekaert
My primary responsibilities at Massachusetts General Hospital involve overseeing the Mucosal Immunology and Developmental Gastroenterology Laboratories at Building 114 MGH-East as part of the Combined Program in Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition at Harvard Medical School. These laboratories have nine principal investigators, ten postdoctoral fellows and two graduate students who study oral tolerance, gut inflammation and microbial-epithelial "crosstalk" My research efforts include defining the passive and active protective properties of human breast milk with regard to the protection from disease during the newborn period. I also study the development of human intestinal host defenses using human fetal organ cultures, cell lines, and xenograft transplant models. Specifically, my laboratory has reported that the human fetal epithelium responds inappropriately to both endotoxin and exotoxins, which helps to explain an increased incidence and severity of certain inflammatory and secretory diarrheas in this age group.
In 1996, the Faculty Council of Harvard Medical School approved the establishment of a Division of Nutrition at HMS and its affiliated hospitals. I was asked to act as the Director of this division. My responsibilities are to consolidate the nutrition community within HMS for the purpose of establishing a strong undergraduate curriculum and postgraduate education for residents as well as faculty, to encourage basic and clinical research in nutrition and to promote awareness of diet as a preventative approach to the practice of medicine. As part of these responsibilities, I chair a subcommittee on nutrition within the Curriculum Committee of the Harvard Medical School and am Principal Investigator on a NIH supported Harvard Clinical Nutrition Research Center. These interactions also include an active participation in and joint appointment in the Department of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health and an affiliated appointment within the Clinical Research Center at M.I.T.
 
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